trail riding








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Bay Creek Shawnee National Forest



Part of the Shawnee National Forest the Bay Creek Ranch affords great amenities and great trails. You will be provided a map of the shawnee national forest and it's trails when you sign in. The showers and bathrooms are top notch and very clean. The lots are easy to pull into to and you can get right to enough trails to keep you busy for many weeks, if not months.

To get there take I-24 to exit 16 then IL-146 to IL-147, turn left onto Cedar Grove Road and you can't miss it. There is an easy to use dump station and a great place to hose down your horses after a trail ride.

You will need shoes or boots here, it is very rocky, I had boots on my mare and wish I had her shoed instead, the sandy soil tends to get in the treads and makes it a slick flat surface pretty quickly, then the rocks are that much slicker.

Most of the trails are not to bad, but you can find some very challenging trails, and when I say challenging, I mean challenging, definitely not for the faint of heart. Trail 049 is especially difficult

Recently they have gone through and marked most of the trails, and they are marked very well, you should have no trouble not getting lost.

The Bay Creek Ranch itself is a great place to stay. They are friendly and helpful, deliver your firewood right to you and when you clean out your pen or stall you leave the muck bucket and they take care of it for you.

There is a cabin you can rent a room in or the whole cabin if you like and the rates are pretty reasonable, check out their website for current rates.





Official WebsiteTrail MapMap of the Campsites

campground

The showers and bathrooms, on the right is where you can hose down your horse after a hard ride.

campground

The office, you can get ice, maps, information, firewood, there is even a diner you can hire by request

campground

There are covered stalls, open pens and high lines for tying up your horses

rocky outcrop

You'll see a lot of rock formations on the trails

rocky.trail

The trail is rocky and in some places pretty challenging

rock hollow

A huge sandstone cave, you can't ride into it anymore, but you can hike a short distance and there are ties for your horses

ledge

A ledge on the trail

woods

Plenty of good old fashioned Illinois woods too


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